WH00T!

A slow finish that got slower as we got closer to the finish. As is often the case, the winds lightened up near the line, so we wafted our way across the finish an hour later than we expected. KYC base (why do I keep calling it KFC?) continued to have radio problems, so we were relaying check-ins even as we were making our final approach to the finish.

One minor bit of excitement, there was some debate in the cockpit as to the precise limit of the military exclusion zone around the marine station and Mokumanu Island (aka "the Island of Death" aka the Romulan Nuetral Zone) out of which we are obligated by race rules, Federal Law, and common sense, to stay (they use it for artillery practice, and the Marines were doing an exercise that day). Well, we had it on GPS and we peered out to locate the limiting buoy.

At night it is dark.

And it was night. The mark that I thought was there was not at all visible. It's supposed to be the one with the yellow flashing light. We saw mark "A", but not "B", which was the one we were after. So we turned toward the finish.

Almost immediately, a military plane with really bright lights flies overhead and turns toward us. Kind of made me wish we were flying a US flag (only race flags are allowed while racing). It flew overhead slowly, but returned several times. Okay, it was just someone practicing landings, but they sure look like strafing runs from a tiny boat.

Then Spencer says "hey look at that" or words to that effect. Mark B is there, in black silhouette. On the wrong side of the boat. Problems: its light is out, so we missed it. we could have hit it, since we never noticed it till we were past. we were on the wrong side, and therefore IN the zone of doom. Well, we got out as fast as we could (we were only 100 yards in). We called the Coast Guard to let them know their lights were off, and finished with them about 40 seconds before the finish.

And then we finished. Half-ounce kite flying and crew very happy. More on the finish to follow...

Thanks Lisa!

Many Cayenne photos, plus some pictures that, inexplicably, are not ALL ABOUT ME! But very nice anyway.

Seriously, though, it was a tremendous thing to have a bunch of Corinthians and Friends out on the water wishing us on. I am confident that if you had stayed with us the whole way, we'd have won (especially if, in addition to shouting "good luck" you had shouted "hey stupid, turn SOUTH")

Link: See photos here

"Mommy, why is Unca Michael's star not in front of everyone elses?"
"Well, sweetheart..." Think fast, think fast.. AHA! Use Cayenne's excuse! "Unca Michael and his crew think they know better than the people who predict the weather professionally."
"Huh?"
"They think they can outsmart the weather satelites, and that the trade winds that have been blowing for centuries will change course all of a sudden and blow them all the way to Hawaii!"
"Are they having fun?
"Oh yes! Alchohol makes everything more fun."
"Can we have some alchohol?"
"Not until you crew with Uncle Michael."
"What's that triangle at the end?"
"That's a boat called Sonata."
"Do they have a lot of alchohol, too?"
"Hush now dear. We'll check the standings again tomorrow."
FIRST, LAST OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN, WE LOVE YOU!! CAN'T WAIT TO GREET YOU IN HAWAII!!
SAIL SAFE!!!
Sis

We have no idea which of our postings made it to the blog. The same indifferent wind that wafted us with maddening languor toward the Aloha State seems to have denied our blog entries access to the ethersphere.

It may be argued that use of the term ethersphere may have been one fault with our program. However, we cannot fault our loving friends and family for the support that they gave to this effort.

We are going to skirt the coast of Molokai (by skirt, we mean be 15 miles away) to get a little more wind, and then go lickety split for Kaneohe Bay. If there was a webcam, you could watch us. In case there is not, it looks like this:

10 miles away: .
5 miles away: "
2 miles away: #
1 mile away: /)

1 foot away: :*

Our thanks again to our friends and families, those who helped us go and those who let us go. Our sweet spouses for the ways that only they know, and our kids and parents.

Hoping not to leave anyone out, we'd like to single out

David Johnson for taking the reins at CYC, as well as thanking CYC itself
West Marine for sponsoring the race
PCYC and KYC for their countless hours of dedication
Donal Botkin, Bill Schmidt, Steve Saul for volunteer boat labor
Phil and Debra Stolp for struts and the famous "drumroll" shy kite
Jack Bieda for carbon fiber pole and solar panels and other gear, sails, and moral support.
The loaned liferaft, we did not get to use it, and we are thankful for that as well!
Fred Mayo and Cindi Marquez for awesome travel arrangements
Our fellow racers for showing grace and sportsmanship

And Noelle, always.

Michael
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Oh yeahhh. 285 miles to go. Today was a slat-a-thon, with very little wind. We made barely 4 knots and had to work for that. Oh well, more at night, so that is good.

Maybe Wednesday arrival. Maybe Tuesday night. We shall see. The boat is rather quiet tonight, which is a nice change from the slamming sail. We plan to put up the smaller shy kite or the big ounce and a half at about 3 am PDT because that is when the squalls come. Okay, it is late and I need to see if we have mail from sweetie.

Makes postings hard. We finally have wind. More to come

Oh yeahhh. 285 miles to go. Today was a slat-a-thon, with very little wind. We made barely 4 knots and had to work for that. Oh well, more at night, so that is good.

Maybe Wednesday arrival. Maybe Tuesday night. We shall see. The boat is rather quiet tonight, which is a nice change from the slamming sail. We plan to put up the smaller shy kite or the big ounce and a half at about 3 am PDT because that is when the squalls come. Okay, it is late and I need to see if we have mail from sweetie.

Wind!

Windy wind wind. Blow me down. Shake me up.

Finally we got some tradewinds and are blowing along at a nice 8 knots over ground. As far as we are concerned THIS is where the race begins and if the other boats had a smidgen of decency, they would come back and start with us.

Actually, if you look at the grib files, you may note an interesting thing. Today, there is no wind to our north. Tomorrow, no wind to our south. That is right, for the next 24 hours, Cayenne is sailing a PERFECT COURSE!!! We will pause now to accept your plaudits.

Thank you. We are looking at a Tuesday or early Wednesday arrival, with the barest hope for a Monday Night. To do so would require consistent winds till then, which seems less than entirely likely. But we will see.

We've had several rain showers, which makes hanging out in the cockpit less than nice, but does clean the boat up as well as some of the crew. Chicken Cordon Bleu (it says so on the label) with rice and green beans for dinner. Tomorrow is Bastille Day, so we shall go about with French Accents and eat French Fries and French Dip. There may be some kissing among the married couples, in which case I shall provide an extra allotment of water for brushing teeth.

A bientot et ohh la la!

Well, we cashed in our chips and took a big hitch south. Stan (whom we are not smarter than) Honey says that if you do this, well, you have probably lost. And sure enough, although we have hopes for all of our competitors meeting with giant squids who grab their rudders, slow them down and generally impede them, many misspent hours over fried calamari and martinis have irreparably damaged relations between us and the squiddy denizens of the sea.

However, the weather, continuing its squirrelly behavior, looks to go very light just before the Sandwich Islands, which may have the effect of generally compressing the fleet.

Nothing has gotten broken. Nothing tore. This is not the worst thing in the world, and we have as much water as we can possibly use!

For fun, we are considering the means of fashioning a fish hook. We did not bring one, but now have a real taste for fresh fishmeat. Best guess is to unroll a "ring-ding", sharpen it, and put a barb on it. If only we had a small stuffed chicken to use as a lure.....

Making 6.1 knots straight for Kaneohe. Well, actually toward the finish. Welll, actually toward the edge of the military exclusion zone two miles away from the finish, then we turn and finish in a mere 938 miles.

Double post

It's like the old Jimmy Buffet Song!

Oh, there's good days and bad days
And should never been had days
But as long as I am on a Passport
The ocean is Heaven to me

There's days we write home about
And some drink alone about
But as long as I am on a Passport
The ocean is Heaven to ME!

From "A pirate looks at fifty (tons)"

Last night, we decided to braid the spinnaker with the spinnaker net and forestay. THese items, normally constructed in such a way as to resist braiding, did in fact braid, so we spent an hour undoing them. Of course, it did not help much that the wind had dropped to nearly nothing. "Could be worse," quipped the late Marty Feldman, "could be raining!"

Did I mention it was raining?

Well, truthfully it WAS only an hour, and the foredeck handled the snarl-up quite well. Lou got tagged by some hardware and received a compensatory miller lite, first to ease the shiner and later to salve the soul.

But we do have the boat positioned roughly where we want her, and are politely waiting for the wind which we are told will be here.

Hello? Hello? is this thing on? We are ready for the wind now.

The water is so smooth, John has taken to assuming that he is sitting poolside and is demanding that the cabana girl bring him umbrella drinks. We have been explaining that she is busy with other customers and that he will have to wait just a bit longer. THis seems to assuage him, but the tip may be smaller than we hoped. I hope to make up the revenue with a commemorative glass.

We had our half-way party last night. A delightful boeuf bourgignon and some Turley wine. And a tossed green salad. Toasting our progress and each other and our families back home and the boat. I don't think that the toasting had anything to do with the braiding, but it is worth a consideration. We don't drink much underway, and this happened alot later. But we shall be extra vigilant.

As I look at the gps, we are now 1035 away, so that is OFFICIAL half-way, at least in terms of distance. I shall open my presents from sweetie-bride and before the rooster crows thrice, report back on what happens next! Will do some math to do some arrival forecasts. Seems unlikely that a Friday arrival is in the cards... Figure Tuesday. MMMAybe Monday if the wind picks up, which it is right now even as we speak. 5.4. 5.5. 5.7. Go John Go. Hey Cabana Girl! Meet John at the New Otani!

Go to He-double-hockey-sticks!" Exclaimed Lou as he hurled a penny into the sea. According to old sailors' lore, this should so anger the ghost of the pirate that he would try to blow us down. It's the blowing we are after, of course.

We are still waiting for Blackbeard to do his stuff. We're taking a hitch south, better late than later, I suppose. THe grib files show only wind barbs with single flags. About 10 knots of wind. They look sort of like hockey sticks, so we get what we asked for, it seems.

We had some very nice sandwiches for lunch. Several of us have tried the coca-cola blak. THis is a mix of coffee and coke. High caffeine. Each imbiber spent several hours talking at a great rate of speed about how the drink did little for him and, moreover, tasted like something a vengeful 6 year-old might concoct to trick his sibling into drinking. We all admired the logo on the bottle however. It is a very nice logo.

We have also taken pictures (two or three should be posted to the blog) and have made up a number of unflattering names for our competitors, mostly connoting want of chastity or lack of familiarity with basic hygiene skills. This makes us feel better. We have also invited the boats in our fleet to turn back and raft up with us. No takers except Sonata who asked us to slow down so they could join us. Yeah, right, like we will fall for that one!

In this race, it is looking the more souther you are, the more firster you are. Certainly the case in our division. So mmmmmaybe we go a little souther and pu;; ahead of cassiopeia, who is only 3 forecast hours ahead of us. Given that we don't believe in forecasts, why believe that one?!?!

We continue to move along fairly well, under the circumstances, thanks to the half-ounce I had providentially acquired from Pineapple Sails. It's red with white trim, on the theory that a dark-colored sail will heat up and rise like a hot-air balloon. Kame was nice enough not to snicker until the check cleared, but really it is a very good sail, and we take it down whenever the wind picks up.

We are continuing to make water and electricity through a variety of means. During the day, the solar panel just keeps up with the boat, but over night we need to add about 70 amp-hours, so we run the engine. If we rev it up a bit, we get 80 amps, so we run a bit less than an hour a day. Some of the boats are having electrical problems, and have become almost illegible on the radio check-ins. I want to say "Sparky! Bark once for 37-34 by 136-23 and bark twice for . . ." well, you get the idea. But hey, think of all the weight they saved in batteries.

One competitor has broken his boom. This is too bad because Bill on Cirrus is a really nice guy. But everyone on the boat is Okay.

Woo hoo! 6.1 knots. Rich is at the wheel and shamelessly exploiting a puff.

Dining today should be good. Kim made eggs benedict for breakfast/lunch (okay, SUNDAY BRUNCH), and we're having a lamb stew tonight. At 1228 miles from the finish, we are not yet entitled to the half-way dinner, more's the pity.

The dry ice is all gone, though the food in the coolers is frozen solid. We'll transfer it to the refrigerator today or tomorrow. Maybe today. We don't want it going all mushy on us.

Speaking of mushy, we have turned the fore and aft cabins into honeymoon suites for the two coupled, while we bachelors sleep in the middle bunks. Rich, having briefly snagged the highly-coveted lower port bunk announced "well, it looks like we've all picked our bunks!" John and I disabused him of the notion. Rich now occupies the pipe berth.

Intelligent Life???
As I stuck up my head into the cockpit about 5 am, Lou was pointing the rather bright white light on the horizon. "Better turn on the radar and call'em on VHF." Well, the radar could not pick them up, which sometimes happens with sailboats carrying those lame skinny reflectors, but a very slab-sided ship can fail to appear also. So I hop on the radio to call them. No answer. I hail again on 16 (hailing) and 13 (bridge-to-bridge). No answer. We had been fooled before in 2004, so I checked to be sure that this was not actually the moon, and it was not, for a lovely orange moon was setting ahead of us, and this thing was dead astern.

I played with the radar settings, but still could not pick the item up, which seemed to be white, red, and green. It appeared to be the masthead light of a sailboat gaining on us fast. I went down and hailed again. No answer.

I came up again and looked at the radar and then at our pursuer. "Ah," I said. "Is it big?" queried Lou. "Yes," I replied evenly, "very. And it is coming at us very fast." "Can you hail them?" "No," I said. "There is no intelligent life on Venus."

Nor, it would appear, in a cockpit at groggy 5 am. Once again we have attempted to hail a celestial body. At least this time we will be smart enough not to tell anybody about it.

Out Story thus far:

Cayenne, the intrepid Passport 40, "40 tons of racing fun" crewed by not, not two, but THREE flag officers and as many sheepskins as you can shake a stick at made a great start on July 3. Deftly exercising our knowledge of the only two racing rules we know (leeward boat has right-of-way) we obtained clear air at the start, hit the line at the gun, and were first boat to the Golden Gate Bridge.

At this point, we expected the other racers to be suitably awed by our prowess that they would fall in line, feebly begging for what scraps of tactical advice we would care to toss over our transom, like a magnanimous baron to a half-starved dog. Insolent curs that they were, however, they sailed past us. "No problem," we smiled, "they owe us time."

We hoisted our 155% genoa and reefed the main and screamed south-west, putting in a great run. Oh the winds were pretty strong. We were wet, we were cold, we were just the tiniest bit green about the gills. We had to fix the head. HOWever, by the end of the second day, we found ourselves predicted to finish second. Counting our advanced degrees (5), stars (7), flags (3), and prior crossings (25 or 26, depending on how you count turning back), we concluded that, as we had ALWAYS suspected, we are smarter than everyone. Therefore, a bold move was required.

"Everyone" in the above context, includes the National Weather Service and the hard working folks at the Ocean Prediction Center. They were predicting that there was a small but determined high pressure zone right between us and Hawaii. "If we are smarter then them (or is it 'they'?)," we reasoned, "they must be wrong. If they are wrong, there must be no High pressure zone there, so we may sail directly toward Hawaii with no fear of those pesky zones of light wind."

So we did.

As it turns out, while we are a very nice bunch, and certainly able to make boiling water with a minimum of supervision, we are NOT smarter than everyone. We had a fair amount of time to absorb this crushing blow to our collective ego as we sailed quite slowly (but skillfully) through the small but determined high pressure zone that lay between us and Hawaii. "We could sue," suggested I, the lawyer. The business majors weren't sure that we had the funding for it. Our mechanical engineer suggested that some means of applying force to the boat might cause it to move in a more forward direction with greater celerity. ("Celerity" is the day's vocabulary word).

"Didn't you say you had a light air spinnaker?" This was a good suggestion. Light air, light air spinnaker. Why, the very name of the sail suggests its preferred utility!

So we put up our brand new half-ounce sail. ANd the boat a-commencet to move.

This went on for a good 15 hours. We'd move at 2-3 knots. That is slow, but it is faster than drifting. We know this because we have seen things drifting, and we were faster. Fishing floats, flotation foam, paper plates from some competitor ahead of us (Oh yes! we are not the only ones mistaken in our self-assessment of how smart we are), all of these were going slower than us. Indeed, we are considering naming our program: "Cayenne, Faster than Flotsam!"

Well, the wind shifted and we ultimately had to gybe. Stan Honey (than whom we are not smarter) says that if you gybe at this point, it's all over. But we just HAD to because otherwise we would have had to sail toward the North Pole, and we are fairly sure that that is wrong. So we did, and we sailed in a sort of, but not entirely, wrong direction for about ten hours. THis gave us ample time to concoct our rationale as to why we are still going to win.

"It will fill in from the North first" "We have more light air experience" "They are all going too far South" "Do you have any mustard?" This last from me.

We also discussed the head, as this is a strongly unifying point on a boat. Things must be run right. We discussed what happens if we do not use the head properly, and regaled Rena, who was trying to enjoy lunch, with stories of exploding holding tanks from WMPC 2000. At that point, it occurred to me that, in deference to it being lunchtime and all, we should change the subject. "Say," I queried, "does anybody know how to skin a goat?"

The wind shifted the other way about 17 hours ago. This has let us point the boat pretty much straight at Mokumanu island's exclusion zone (which is the next mark of the course) and make a good 5-7 knots good toward it. It's 8 am on July 8, and our half-ounce spinnaker has moved us over 100 miles the way we want to go. We are 1410 miles from the finish with plenty of water, food, and a case of good wine.

Horror of horrors! No pressure water. Oh, the ignominy of having to pump all our water with the foot pumps provided at the sink!

Are we of Cayenne to let this happen to us? NO!

Have we got a total of 25 Pacific Crossings? YES!

Have we got more graduate degrees combined than a small midwestern university? Well, no, but we do have alot.

Anyway we decided to fix the water pump, which had a broken casting. THe break allowed the water to leak, and the darned thing did not pump. WHile we had NO PROBLEM with drinking and washing, we could not take hot showers. THis is barbarian.

Fix #1: JB Weld and lots of washers. Result: Nope. In the words of flogmeister Paul Harvey:"good day!"
Fix #2: Band-It tool. Yes, we used the band it tool to band it. A big frigging steel band around the whole thing (John and Rich suggestion) seems to have done the trick. Only minor spirketting. Look that one up.

Meanwhile, back in the race, we are going kind of not too fast. We took the turn tight and are in a bit of high pressure. We have enough wind to stay in the game, but we need to work at it, Now that we have had hot showers, work we shall!

Love to all, from all.

Double Post

If you're trying to win a house, you don't just bet or red. you place it all on 35 black and let it ride... That's what we're doing!

It is blowing the oysters off the rocks today. We were thrilled to get a great start, but the wind out here is firm, as if to say, oh yeah? Start THIS! So, we put up the appropriate tiny sails and continue on at 7-8 knots. Oh, did I mention that the boat is once again a Very Wet Boat? Darn.

But now, it has been 24 hours, and we have had some tuna noodle casserole with potato chips crumbled on top. The sun has come out, and we continue to scoot along at over 8 knots. We'd LIKE an excuse to sail a really short course, but once again, the weather forecasts are saying "don't do it!" Fortunately, nobody is taking a flyer north, so we are comfy. As of this morning's reports, we were among the more northerly of the fleet, which is fine. If the High DOES snap into place, then we will look smart.

Speaking of smart, all my shirts got wet except the one I am wearing. This will be fun for everybody....

Love to all and thanks to those who came out say hi!

Except for frozen goodies, and personal seabags we are ready to go. Oh and mugs. ANd aluminum foil, we are ready to go. Oh and dry ice. A bit more wind.

This time, however, I shall remember my pants. Motto: Never Pantsless Again!

Or did I not mention what happened in 2004? Yeah, I forgot my foul weather pants. Duuuuuh. Not this time.

We are paying very very close attention to the wind. As Skip Allen said (unconciously channelling Yogi Berra), "It's 2000 all over again." Once again we see a collection of unconsolidated high pressure zones giving us perfectly lovely weather for a stroll, or perhaps a picnic in our freshly-pressed pinafores, What it is NOT is a good weather for hell bent for leather sailing. However, we have our hopes up.

THe good news is that Cayenne is as ready as she ever has been, our crew has done a great job. We have a pipe berth and two more instruments than ever. More instruments = more speed right? Maybe we still need the "more wind" button.

We are sending good thoughts to our colleagues in the SSS Transpac. We hope to catch them!

UPDATE the grib (Gridded Binary weather data computer model) say that we will have wind. We gotta head south a bit, but not too much. DOn't tell California Girl.